February 19, 2025 • 47 mins
Anxiety and depression in young people are at an all-time high—but why? Are we too quick to push kids into therapy? Is social media stunting their development? And what’s the biggest parenting mistake that could be holding kids back?
This week on Arroyo Grande, Dr. Meg Meeker, one of the nation’s leading parenting experts, joins the show to unpack the growing mental health crisis among children and teens. We discuss the hidden dangers of social media, the role of fathers in shaping their daughters' futures, and why quality time with parents matters more than therapy.
Plus, we dive into how parents unknowingly shape their child’s future spouse choice, the real impact of isolation, and practical steps for raising strong, confident kids in today’s culture. Stay tuned for a fascinating How It Ends segment on the unexpected story behind one of history’s most famous paintings!
🔹 Is your child spending too much time on social media?
🔹 How much should parents intervene in their kids' lives?
🔹 What’s the key to raising emotionally strong kids?
Tune in to Arroyo Grande as Dr. Meg Meeker shares powerful parenting insights and real-life strategies that every parent needs to hear.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
There's an explosion of anxiety and depression in young people.
What is the cause of this thing?
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Kids spend a lot of time girls in particular, on
social media. Believe it or not, social media is very
isolating and if we're not in healthy relationship with the
most important people in our lives are family members, then
we're really off kilter and something goes wrong.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
Are we too quick to push children into therapy? Do
you think? Yes?
Speaker 2 (00:31):
I think we are because I think that parents fail
to recognize how critical they are in their child's development emotionally, physically, mentally.
But any child it go as a therapist is going
to be quickly followed by mom and dad because you
can't treat a child in isolation.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
What is the biggest mistake that parents make and how
do you avoid this? I'm Raymond Arroyo. Welcome to Arroyo Grande,
where we dive into the wild currents of this culture
(01:11):
and pull out perspectives and practical life lessons from incredible
culture makers. This week, I'm so excited to be joined
by doctor Meg Meeker. She is one of the nation's
leading parenting authorities, a pediatrician, best selling author, podcaster. She's
helped countless families, guiding parents through the stages of their
children's development and counseling the kids themselves. She shared some
(01:36):
incredible wisdom, as you'll hear if you're thinking about a
family or if you have children of your own. We're
going to tackle how social media can stunt a kid's development,
how you actually choose the spouse of your children, and
the biggest parenting mistake you can make as a mom
or dad and how to avoid it. This is a
conversation full of advice that you need today, laced with
(01:59):
real life encouragement and are how it ends. Our historical
flashback reveals the lasting power of a very famous mother.
Stay tuned for that. Here's doctor Meg Meeker. Doctor Meeker,
first of all, thank you so much for being here. Look,
we've known each other a long time from your very
first book, Strong Father's Strong Daughters. Let's do a quick
(02:20):
overview here. How critical is a father to his daughter's
development and why? I mean, dads are always portrayed as
goofball characters in all the movies, Meg, why are they
important in the family.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
Well, we know that a father is the most important
man in a daughter's life. He's the one who teaches
her how men should behave, what you should expect from boys, teachers, boyfriends,
and so forth. And he really is the one who
gives a tremendous amount of self confidence and self esteem.
If you look across all issues that girls can have depression, anxiety, ADHD,
(02:55):
difficulty finishing school and so forth, the girls that have
a dad in their lives do extremely well across all aspects,
and so a dad really is critical, very very critical.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
Conversely, how important is a mother to her son's growth
and becoming a man. This is something people rarely talk
about as well.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
May Yeah, you're right, you know, there's something about that
cross sex relationship that has a uniqueness that the same
sex relationship doesn't have. So father to daughter and mother
to son, a mother is very very important, particularly during
the first ten years. But after the first ten years
(03:37):
then we found that a dad is critical for the
healthy development and moving in from boyhood to manhood because
boys really need that relationship with a father and they
need a role model is critical.
Speaker 1 (03:51):
What have you seen in your practice when the mother
is absent, for instance, in a young boy's life, what
happens there?
Speaker 2 (03:59):
Well, I think that you know, there's a difficulty with
attachment because boys typically and girls typically attached to the
mother in the early years of life, more difficult for
them to attach to their father and maybe fathers to them.
So what we see is the difficulty having that sort
of intimacy, trust and love exchange can be hard for kids,
(04:22):
and if they don't have it in the early years,
it's harder for them to get it later in the
later years.
Speaker 1 (04:28):
You don't make something we've talked about before, and it's
fascinating to me, and you see it play out in
not only people I know, but your clients I know
as well. Tell me how a parent can actually shape
the selection of their child's spouse. I mean, they don't
do it with words or deliberately, but the child does
(04:49):
it because of their example and place in their life.
Speaker 3 (04:53):
Explain that it's fascinating.
Speaker 2 (04:56):
A child, particular, let's talk daughters and fathers, watches every
move her father makes, not because she's necessarily interested in
her dad, but because she needs to know how he
feels about her. So in those early years, as she
watches her dad, she's taking in messages. My dad likes me,
my dad thinks I'm pretty, my dad thinks I'm capable,
(05:17):
and all of those begin to shape her identity as
she gets older. That is in her And there's a
psychological phenomenon where we as humans tend to return to
what we know, and that's why you see girls who've
been abused as children marry an abuser, and girls who've
(05:38):
had a great relationship with her dad end up having
a great relationship with their father because you fall back
on what you know and it's all subconscious, which is
very interesting. So it's important for fathers to realize that
when the girls are young, so they can really pay
attention to how they're treating her, talking to her affection
and so forth.
Speaker 3 (05:58):
So different and the guys she.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
Marry, Yeah, I mean, what you're really saying is the
man that you are in the household, the father that
you are in the household, will be played out in
the next generation in the man that that girl chooses
as her spouse or as her partner.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
Absolutely, And you know, girls don't want to hear that
that they're marrying a guy that's very much like their dad,
but it's true.
Speaker 1 (06:23):
Wow, does it apply to boys as well? They do
they marry it? Does someone like mother really can?
Speaker 2 (06:29):
And we find that boys will be more attracted to
somebody again that they're familiar with, a girl or a
woman who treats them like their mother did, talks to
them as nurturing and kind, and so it does tend
to work that way as well.
Speaker 1 (06:44):
There's an explosion, Megan, I know you're seeing this in
your practice. There's an explosion of anxiety and depression in
young people. What is the cause of this thing? I
mean we were talking earlier. You deal with this, I
know in your practice on a day basis.
Speaker 3 (07:01):
I do.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
I do, And it's disturbing because I've been at this
a long time and I've never seen the prevalence of
anxiety and depression that I do now. I think that
what's happening is that kids feel lonelier than they've ever
felt before. And we think, well, why is that they're
connected all the time to friends they're really not. Kids
(07:22):
spend a lot of time girls in particular, on social media.
Believe it or not, social media is very isolating. It's
not a real relationship. Kids feel very lonely. Girls feel
very lonely when they're on social media, even though they're
texting back and forth. It's not real and they spend
so much time doing that that they're not spending enough
(07:44):
time with their parents face to face, dialoguing, touching, hugging,
and so I think they're very lonely and that causes
them to feel very anxious and depressed. Because we're not
We're born to living community. We're born for relationship. God
tells us that. And if we're not in healthy relationship
(08:04):
with the most important people in our lives are family members,
then we're really off kilter and something goes wrong, and
that's what kids are feeling.
Speaker 1 (08:14):
To be Meg, What do you tell parents, I mean,
what can they do if this child is anxious and depressed?
And how much of this is a reflection of the
anxiety from the parents themselves.
Speaker 3 (08:25):
Well, that's a great question. I will say.
Speaker 2 (08:29):
Usually as I sort of unpack things with kids, I
find that if a child is anxious, there's usually a
person very close to them, i e. Mom or Dad
who's anxious as well. Because anxiety feeds on itself, it
feeds on other people around you. But what do I
tell parents? First of all, I say, what is going
on in the home? Is there a lot of stress
(08:50):
in the home. Often that'll do it, you know, Dad, losses, job,
moms working too much, the parents never see the child.
And so I say this, well, I need to go
to with therapists. I said, let's try this first. You know,
your child needs you more than a therapist. Your child
needs more time with you. So let's amp up the
amount of one on one time that you have with
(09:10):
your kids. And often that's a real game changer because
as parents look back over the past weeks or months,
they really realize they're not spending much time with their kids.
Because we're a generation of people that just want to
do as much as we can in a day. The
problem is the kids and their relationship with us are
the casualty. So parents really need to step up their
(09:32):
time with their kids.
Speaker 1 (09:33):
You know, you said something there I want to pick
up on. You said you don't need a therapist, you
need more time with that child. Are we too quick
to push children into therapy? Do you think? Because that
can become its own you know rot if you will?
I mean, where does therapy? And I always wonder, well.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
Exactly, yes, I think we are because I think that
parents fail to recognize nice how critical they are in
their child's development emotionally, physically, mentally, and I think that
whenever something goes wrong with a child, rather than saying, oh,
I could be part of this, I'm part of the
solution and remedy.
Speaker 3 (10:10):
But they don't know what.
Speaker 2 (10:11):
To do or they don't want to take the time
to do it, so they just give them to a therapist.
But any child it go as a therapist is going
to be quickly followed by mom and dad because you
can't treat a child in isolation. You have to treat
the unit.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
How much of this anxiety and this depression is caused
by social media? How dangerous is these devices in your estimation?
Speaker 3 (10:36):
Huge? And actually it's just not my experience.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
But we do have great studies that show that the
rise in social media use parallels the rise in depression.
Speaker 3 (10:48):
It's almost, you know, one to one.
Speaker 2 (10:51):
And so we do know that the longer girls are
on social media, the more their risk for depression, severe depression.
And there's a wrecked correlation there. And this is why
I'm so anti social media because I have literally seen
kids in my practice who have tried to commit suicide
and will admit to the to me that social media
(11:12):
played a part. They felt they weren't good enough, They
weren't pretty enough, they didn't they weren't popular enough, they
didn't have the right boyfriend, and it really takes them down.
Speaker 1 (11:22):
You call this comparison culture, that that's what has created
particularly for these girls. How do you break that loop?
Speaker 2 (11:31):
Yeah, well, I think that because you're absolutely right. It
is comparison culture because every girl is looking at her
friends on social media and she's never enough and so forth.
So how do you break the loop? I think that
it's important. First of all, if your daughter is on
social media, she's already on it, then you need to
talk to her about this. You need to shorten the
(11:53):
amount of time that she's on social media. I feel
very strongly if parents out there don't have they have
given their daughters a cell phone and iPhone, that they
can give them a phone or watch that doesn't connect
to the internet. The longer you can wait, the better
off it is for your daughter, because you can help
a sixteen or seventeen year old girl understand what's going
(12:15):
on in the comparison culture, much harder to do with
a twelve or thirteen year old.
Speaker 1 (12:20):
Huh, well, I know there's that movement. Wait till eighth
you think, you know, Wait till eighth grade to give
them a smartphone. You think that that's too early. Why
too young?
Speaker 2 (12:32):
It's too young, And I'll tell you why, because a
thirteen fourteen year old girl is so incredibly vulnerable. She'll
believe things that people tell her. And I think we
talked about it. Social media is the number one place
where girls get sex trafficked, and a fourteen year old
girl is far more influential than a seventeen or eighteen
(12:54):
year old girl.
Speaker 3 (12:55):
And that's why.
Speaker 2 (12:56):
I just like that cognitive maturity, more cognitive mature, sure,
in an older child, so she can deal with these things.
Speaker 3 (13:03):
A lot better.
Speaker 2 (13:04):
This is really hard, dangerous stuff, and I think that
parents know that on some level, but part of them feels, well,
my daughter, she's a straight A student. I can trust her.
She's great, doesn't matter.
Speaker 3 (13:18):
You know.
Speaker 2 (13:19):
More brain cells are more brain cells, and she needs
a little more frontal lobe development in order to navigate
this tough well.
Speaker 1 (13:26):
And we never talk about that. You know, make that
those front lobes really don't close and fully develop until
what twenty five twenty one?
Speaker 2 (13:35):
Yes, yes, I always tell parents your job is to
raise a healthy twenty five year old because the brain
really isn't fully developed until then, and I think that
we tend to think it develops earlier because we push
our kids to act more adult like too early, and
that tricks us into believing that our kids are actually
(13:56):
older than they are. We put far too much trust
in our kids, trust to make adult decisions when they're
too young.
Speaker 1 (14:03):
Meg, what's the impact of that constant visual and audio stimulation?
I mean, I see kids when I travel. They're running
through Instagram feeds for hours, on a plane for hours.
How do you counteract that?
Speaker 2 (14:17):
If you think about it, kids are living in a
constant fight or flight mode. The stimulation, just as you said,
auditory and visual stimulation, it's too much for their body
system and it burns them out. And when they get
burned out, they have a hard time sinking. They're fuzzier,
their moods go down, their answer, they have a harder
time sleeping. And again, what I encourage parents to do
(14:40):
is they need to carve out some time in their
child's day where it's quiet, there's no stimulation. They sit
with a book on their lap that has words on
a page, that don't jump and move and shout.
Speaker 1 (14:55):
And when do you recommend I mean, we talked about
this about the young person getting a smart phone. What's
the alternative? I mean, I know there are these other
you know, non smartphones where you can still stay in
touch with your family if you have an emergency. And
I know you've dealt with this even in your own
family with your own grandkids.
Speaker 3 (15:14):
Yeah, I have.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
Because now that we don't have a family phone where
kids can call and you pick up and say the
receiver and say hello, it is important for kids to
be able to connect with their parents. You know, for instance,
if there's a soccer practice and mom forgets to pick
them up or whatever.
Speaker 3 (15:30):
I've been there, done that.
Speaker 1 (15:30):
We have Matris.
Speaker 3 (15:32):
But anyway, you didn't have a watch.
Speaker 2 (15:35):
But anyway, the gab phone and the gizmo phones are
terrific because they look just like an iPhone. You can
get a watch that looks just like an Apple watch.
Kids can call their parents, they can maybe text their parents.
They cannot take photos, it doesn't go on the internet.
They can have social media, so there's that connection there
(15:56):
for safety and mom can always get hold of them,
but they don't have the dangerous risk.
Speaker 3 (16:02):
And something like a gab phone, you.
Speaker 2 (16:05):
Can increase the amount of exposure. Kids have to the
Internet over time, so it'll actually grow with your child.
So you may start at fourteen, no internet, and at
seventeen go, okay, you know, she can go, and so
you actually it grows with the child.
Speaker 1 (16:22):
Yeah, you get more access as you grow and you're
ready for that access, which I think I agree with you.
I think these devices are way too free wheeling. I mean,
you're throwing this child in the middle of everything. Talk
to me, Talk to me a bit about how damaging
the isolation is make. I see this every day, particularly
when I'm traveling, you know, when I'm in New York
(16:43):
or even when I'm home in New Orleans. People have
the earbuds on. Now they've got the meta glasses. They're
on the phone. Thousands of people could be on the street,
but these people are actually all alone in their fake world.
What is the solution here? I call it the bubble people.
They're in their own little bubble.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
Well, again, I think that it's really up to the parents,
and parents can do this. They say, well, my child
is on social media three or four hours a day,
and that's not uncommon, believe it or not. I've had
kids addicted. But what they need to do is say, Okay,
we're going to wean you down a little bit from
seven to eight o'clock at night. From eight o'clock at
(17:21):
night to nine o'clock, nobody can be on their phone.
And that means parents too, because, believe it or not,
kids are bothered by parents being on their phones more
than parents are bothered by their kids being on the phone.
Because when a kid is around a parent who's not
paying attention, they feel invisible and they feel that they're
not worth their parents' time and attention. So it's really
(17:43):
important that you make a family plan. Okay, family quiet hour.
You know, we're going to play a game from nine
to ten or eight to nine. So you've got to
begin to establish family rules for phones because then if
everybody does it, then the teenagers less likely to gripe
about having to do it.
Speaker 1 (18:02):
Yeah. Well, you know it's not just kids. I mean
the people I see with the earbuds and they're texting,
and they've got the metaglasses and they're in You're talking
to these people in the gym or on the street,
they're not even connecting with you. These are grown ups, though, Meg,
We're not talking about little kids. Here, But I guess
the way you train the child is the way the
adult turns out. And we're becoming increasingly isolated as people,
(18:25):
and that deeply concerns me. If somebody wants to see
a culture thrive and families grow, and you want good,
healthy citizens.
Speaker 2 (18:32):
And you think how it makes the people around the
person using the device feel. It makes them feel that again,
they're not important. They're not important to say hello to,
to shake hands with. They're just a nonentity. And the
other thing is when kids are on their phones all
the time, are listening to music, They are in their
(18:53):
private world, and mom and dad are not in that world,
and that can be very, very dangerous. Ten eleven old boy,
pornography is there. It will find him. All he has
to do is google trucks, and you know, the algorithm says, oh,
this must be a boy, and then the pornography finds them.
And of course he's not going to say anything to
(19:14):
his parents because he's very embarrassed and doesn't want his
phone taken away, and so he just stays there and
it finds him again and again. The same is to
with girls, not necessarily pornography, but friends and people that
she has no business talking to again. She lives in
this private world that's very isolating. And anytime they're isolated
(19:35):
from those who love them and those who can actually
shape their identity mom and dad and siblings, they start
to fall apart. They literally just start to fall apart.
Speaker 1 (19:47):
I personally think a child social media should be monitored
and I think patrolled. Friends of mine, those say they
need their privacy, meg Maker, you'd respond, how what would
you tell those parents?
Speaker 3 (19:59):
No, they don't, No, they don't.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
You know, when you and a high crew, that's a that's
a that's ridiculous, that's a ruse. And I think that
parents kind of use it as a cop out in
a way because they don't want to take time to
a argue with a child about that there is should
be no privacy and and me, they just don't want
to argue with a child because they'll give pushback. They
(20:22):
want their child to like them, they don't want any friction.
But here's why your child cannot have privacy until they're gone.
First of all, you need to keep them safe from themselves.
They are kids who are just looking for trouble all
the time, not consciously, but these are kids who are
ready to you know, fall off the rails at any
(20:44):
given moment if they're on social media, video games. So
you need to protect the child from himself. And so
when when kids come at you and say that's not fair, this.
Speaker 3 (20:53):
Is my private phone. Well, first of all, parents, you
on the phone.
Speaker 2 (20:57):
And second of all, you can't have a phone unless
I'm allowed to see it, because there's no secrets. You
and I you know, don't keep secrets from our spouses. Well,
can come to my phone and look at anything anytime.
That's what a healthy relationship does. So kids want a
healthy relationship with their parents and other and their peers
needs to be open for parents or else. Don't give
(21:19):
my cell phone. I'm really a bugger about it. Don't
let me have a cell phone.
Speaker 1 (21:23):
Tell me about the danger of Instagram and some of
these social media sites. I mean, this is like a
rife with groomers, who are you know, trafficking And so
many of these victims we read about may they first
encountered the people who would abuse them through these sites online.
Speaker 2 (21:41):
Exactly. Think about this, Raymond. You've got a thirteen fourteen
year old girl who doesn't spend much one on one
time where their parents are face to face. So she's
living in isolation. She's lonely. Now she gets on a
social media and a fifty or sixty year old guy
knows she's lonely, so he gets in there and he
starts to play her. Oh, I'm a sixteen year old boy,
(22:05):
and you're just so sweet. I see what you're writing.
That girl falls for that so fast. I can't tell
you how many times. Does not take much to influence
a thirteen, fifteen, even sixteen year old girl, because every
girl wants to think they're beautiful, that someone understands them.
(22:25):
You know, Oh, I understand you. Your parents don't, and
you know you and I would go, what are you
talking about? Your stranger?
Speaker 3 (22:32):
Fourteen year old girl doesn't care. All she knows is
this guy's telling her she's one.
Speaker 1 (22:36):
Well, and they're living in their.
Speaker 2 (22:37):
Hair, passing back and forth pictures and that's really dangerous.
Speaker 1 (22:41):
Well, they're living in their heads. And as you said,
they were alone. And when you're alone, you're in a loop.
And if someone's feeding that loop or feeding you new lines.
And look, it's not only young girls. I just read
a story where some poor, you know, sixty five year
old woman was sending money to Brad Pitt. It's not
Brad Pitt, but it's posing his brand, you know, So
(23:02):
they fall for this stuff.
Speaker 2 (23:04):
My husband, my husband has a patient who was sixty
and she announced that she was leaving to go to
Europe to marry some guy. And he said, well, have
you met him, No, but I've seen his picture. Well
have you sent him money?
Speaker 1 (23:17):
Yes?
Speaker 2 (23:17):
Because his mother was in the hospital and she literally
was ready to get on the plane the next day
and he said, ma'am, there's a problem here. You cannot go.
So it's really remarkable. She's a widow and she's very lonely.
Loneliness crushes your spirit, and that's where if you don't
even have a relationship with God, you're floating. You're sort
(23:39):
of in no man's land. And then you compound that
with loneliness in the midst of your family.
Speaker 3 (23:47):
Surviving is hard.
Speaker 2 (23:49):
It's very hard, and it's hard to articulate, but everybody
knows what I'm talking about. But loneliness is a killer,
and being on social media media makes kids terribly lonely
and terribly vulnerable to manipulation.
Speaker 1 (24:06):
Now how it ends. Sometimes a mother can make you
immortal when she was forty five, Anna McNeil lost her husband,
but she was deeply religious and devoted to her children,
especially young James, who had left their Massachusetts home and
relocated in London. Now. James was a painter and a bohemian.
(24:28):
Oscar Wilde said of James, he spells art with a
capital I. At the time, James was living with his
redheaded mistress, a woman named Joe Hifferman. Joe apparently had
to clear out of james apartment to make room for
his mother. Upon her arrival, Anna wrote, God answered my
(24:50):
prayers for his welfare by leading me here. She chastised
her son for his randy ways and became his caretaker,
occasional art dear dealer, and much more. In eighteen seventy one,
James was commissioned to paint a portrait of Maggie Graham.
She was the daughter of a member of parliament. James
(25:10):
painted in a heat and the young girl repeatedly failed
to show up to pose for the painting. What did
James do? Wait until you hear how it ends? Now
how it ends? So this James, a portrait artist, was
commissioned to paint a parliament's member's daughter in eighteen seventy one.
(25:31):
James had already prepared the canvas, and after the girl
missed several appointments, he wanted to paint someone, so James
made his mother Anna his subject. She later wrote, I
stood bravely two or three days whenever he was in
the mood for studying me, as his pictures are studies,
(25:53):
and I stood as a statue, but realized it was
too great an effort. Anna was so exhausted after days
of standing that James finally relented and let his mother
sit in a rocking chair. Anna later saluted her artist,
who quote is gently patient, as he is never wearying
(26:16):
in his perseverance, concluding to paint me sitting perfectly at
my ease. James would later call the portrait of Anna
with her hands on her lap Arrangement in Gray and
Black number one because of the dark hues he used
in the work. But you probably know it better as
(26:36):
Whistler's mother. It would become James McNeil Whistler's most famous
and beloved work and a living testament to the immortality
that can await those who stay close to Mama. Now
you know how it ends back to Meg Meeker. You
mentioned it earlier about boys and the omnipresent pornography that
(27:00):
really is all across the culture. It's not just online,
it's everywhere. How does pornography distort the image those boys
have of the other sex? How does it affect that
and their expectations.
Speaker 2 (27:14):
Well, it has a profound effect on a boy's ability
to later on experience true intimacy, physical sexual intimacy, because
after they see pornography, they become hardened to certain acts.
They're stimulating it first, but then they get boring, so
(27:35):
they have to go to more severe forms of pornography.
And we know that, and it just gets worse and
worse and worse and so bad. That's where they turn
to child porn because that gives them a little bit
of a kick. So what it does is it interferes
with the boy's ability to have healthy intimacy later on.
It interferes with his sense of self and his own sexuality.
(27:57):
He doesn't feel good about himself as a man because
what he's experienced over these years or months is that
I'm not satisfied, so something's wrong with me. It affects
his relationship with women because he objectifies the women and
often always in pornography. Women are put down, they are
(28:19):
they're used, and they're used as just objects for a
man's pleasure.
Speaker 3 (28:25):
Now they wouldn't tell you that, but they are so.
Speaker 2 (28:27):
Then a boy begins to see a woman as just
an object for his pleasure. Everything becomes a mess. It
absolutely becomes a mess. And this is why addiction can
be so bad and how it can take men a
long time to wait out of this addiction because it
affects them on so many different levels.
Speaker 1 (28:45):
And as a pediatrician who deals with body image and girls,
and I know as the father of a daughter, this
is important and it's an issue and the expectations in boys.
What is the impact of celebrities like we saw this
Bianca Sensory, Kanye West's wife showing up literally naked at
the Grammys, or Kim Kardashian posting these nearly naked posts
(29:08):
daily weekly. How does that affect young people and the
kids seeing it? Boys and girls?
Speaker 2 (29:15):
Well, first of all, girls look at this and they say, wow,
there's Beyonce. She has a lot of money, she's very popular,
she's very beautiful. And I want to be popular and
beautiful and maybe rich one day. I need to look
like her. I need to create my body to be
like her, and I need to dress like her, and
I need to be a sexy person. I see this
(29:37):
all the time in grade school.
Speaker 1 (29:38):
Kids, you know, in grad school.
Speaker 3 (29:41):
It's amazing. It's amazing.
Speaker 2 (29:43):
You know, our kids went to Catholic school where they
had to be covered nect to ese, and I thought,
that's good.
Speaker 1 (29:49):
The uniform is a good thing, Meg. It teaches a
certain rigor.
Speaker 2 (29:53):
They are and then to a young boy, it's stimulating
because boys are so visually stimulated and men, and Beyonce's
not being nice to them. You know, I don't like
my husband to look at Beyonce because I can't compare
with her, but fortunately he can't compare with brat Petty either.
But you know, it's stimulating to men, and it's not
(30:14):
fair because it changes their expectations of what they desire
in a woman, and nobody can keep up with that.
So that's why it's really not fair to either girls
or boys.
Speaker 1 (30:27):
Okay, this is really important. What is the biggest mistake
that parents make or I'll broaden it. What are the
biggest mistakes parents make and how do you avoid them?
Speaker 2 (30:39):
I think the biggest mistakes parents make is trusting their
child's ability to make adult decisions. I see this all
the time because they believe their kid is a good kid.
Their kid is a smart kid, and he's much he
has much stronger character than his friends, and he doesn't
lie even though a lot of his friends lie, and
(30:59):
he has good grades. But this is what I tell parents.
The kids I really worry about are the good kids,
particularly a good girl. If you have a sixteen seventeen
year old girl who's a good kid, close to her parents,
good grades, I worry because this is a girl who
can't say no. She doesn't want to hurt anybody's feelings,
(31:21):
so she'll date the football player that's a year older
than she is, and parents will be excited because he's
so popular.
Speaker 3 (31:28):
Da da da da da, And then she's going to do.
Speaker 2 (31:30):
What he wants because she doesn't want to hurt his feelings.
I hear that over and over. I can't say no
to my boyfriend. He won't like me and he'll be hurt.
Speaker 3 (31:42):
And they can't.
Speaker 2 (31:43):
They're in over their head. So I think the biggest
thing is that parents putting false trust in their kids
because they fail to realize how limited their kids' cognitive
and emotional growth.
Speaker 3 (31:56):
Is they don't let them be children.
Speaker 1 (31:59):
Yeah, and then we try. We entrust them to teachers,
we entrust them to therapists, we entrust them to everybody
but ourselves, the parents.
Speaker 2 (32:06):
Exactly exactly, And we need to have more self confidence
and say, my child's struggling with this, I'm going to
give it a go. She's got anxiety, she's got depression.
And I have seen dads alone pulled daughters through depression
and out of a depression by spending more time with them,
having great conversations and not going to a therapist. I
(32:29):
had a girl whose parents wanted to send to her
camp out west because she was a bad boyfriend, running
around and so forth. And I said, let's wait, and
I encourage dad, do me a favor, take your camping
for a couple of weeks. And do you know at
the end of two weeks, when they were in the
middle of nowhere paddling a canoe and she's crying, crying, crying,
she came home and didn't have to go to the
(32:50):
camp out west. That's the power of a father, and
dads need to grab that because they don't believe they
had that kind of power.
Speaker 1 (32:59):
Well, culture diminishes dad so much, makes them feel like
the goofball. They're always the goofball in movies, in film,
on television, and I think that has sunk in at
a certain level, and I think, well, you know, my
wife is the one who can handle this stuff, So
dads kind of take a back seat. They're spectators in
many cases they are.
Speaker 2 (33:18):
They're not only spectators. They're not only made that by
movies and the media. I think we women have to
take responsibility as well. We had three daughters and a son,
and there were times where subconsciously I didn't realize it,
but that was sabotaging my husband. He'd be talking to
the girls and so forth, and I'd be listening and
I go, no, no, no, that's not the way you
(33:40):
talk to girls. And I'd swoop in and sort of
take over the conversation. What is the message to our daughters?
Dad doesn't understand, only mom does. Get out of the way.
So we mothers need to take a hard look at
are we sabotaging our husbands and their relationships with our kids?
Speaker 3 (33:59):
Unknowing?
Speaker 1 (34:00):
Wow, wow, anything else? Any other major mistake that parents
make unwittingly or wittingly.
Speaker 2 (34:09):
Yes, I think they don't spend enough time with their kids.
I know that's a hard thing for parents to hear.
But you know, parents often ask me. You know, I
have a full time job, my husband has a full
time job. We have a babysitter fifty hours a week.
That child's going to have trouble. Kids are not made
(34:29):
to be raised in institutions or just by nannies. I
know I'm going to get a lot of hate mail
for that, but that's okay. My job is to speak
for children, not for their parents. Parents need to figure
out a way too. Working parents. You need to figure
out a way where you tag team. My husband and
I did that. Maybe you don't see each other as
much for a period of time. Oh well, you know
(34:51):
you can survive better. So parents need to really be
diligent about shifting their work schedules so they spend more
time with their kids.
Speaker 1 (35:00):
You can't replace them, yeah, FaceTime with their children. It
look we're empty nesters now, and boy do I feel it.
And you look back and you go, oh, maybe I
should have gone with them on that trip. Maybe I
should have done that. That's what you always say to yourself,
so you can't spend too much time with your children.
That's the I hope. If there's a messages that people take,
I hope it's that one. Look. Seventy seven percent of
(35:21):
kids do not qualify meg for military service physically. Have
you seen a decline in overall health among your clients
among your patients, yes.
Speaker 3 (35:31):
Yes, absolutely.
Speaker 2 (35:33):
It's interesting now because we're going into a time period
where we're going to start examining foods and what's in them,
and we feel like, oh, there's too much fat, there's
too much die. This is our answer to obesity. No,
it isn't. The reason we have overweight kids who are
not in good physical condition is because we let them
(35:54):
eat all day long. Parents want their kids to snack
all the time.
Speaker 3 (36:00):
Kids don't need a snack.
Speaker 2 (36:01):
We're setting up very unhealthy eating habits for kids by
saying second grade, third grade, fifth grade, have you had
your snack? Kids should not eat every two hours? And
then what happens. They get older and they put on weight,
and the more weight you put on, the less you
want to exercise.
Speaker 3 (36:17):
It's really hard.
Speaker 2 (36:18):
To motivate a fifteen year old girl a boy to
go exercise.
Speaker 1 (36:21):
Wow, So you know.
Speaker 2 (36:22):
They get the snowball starts to roll and accumulate, and
pretty soon they have a hard time either dieting or exercising.
So I really feel that we parents need to take
charge again. It's like with cell phones. Don't put your
child on a diet, put the whole family.
Speaker 3 (36:39):
On a diet.
Speaker 2 (36:40):
You can't tell your kid to not eat after seven
o'clock at night. If you're watching a movie at nine
with a pull of popcorn, you just.
Speaker 3 (36:47):
Can't do that.
Speaker 2 (36:49):
And the other thing, too, is I think that parents
don't want to say no to their kids. Kids beg
for food all the time, and you have to be
able to say no, you cannot eat that, No, you
can't go in refrigerator.
Speaker 3 (37:03):
You know.
Speaker 2 (37:03):
If I know it sound like an old fuddy duddy,
But if it were an hour and a half before
dinner when I was a kid and if I went
to eat a snack, my mother say you can't do that,
We're going to have dinner. And so kids need to
learn respect for food.
Speaker 1 (37:17):
Yeah, and restraint.
Speaker 3 (37:18):
Need to teach them that.
Speaker 1 (37:19):
Yeah, restraint, it's not a bad thing. Personal self mastery.
And the other thing is the kids are so sedentary today.
Make we went outside, I was thinking. When I was
a kid, it would be hours and hours after school
we were climbing trees until it got dark. You know,
they'd have to pull us in in the night time.
Kids don't do that anymore. They sit in front of
the green all night.
Speaker 2 (37:39):
All night, all night, and so they sit and they
go like this and again on so many different levels.
It's very unhealthy. And I wonder if ADHD, you know,
is a result of that as well. It sounds ironic,
but boys who are bouncy need a tree in their backyard.
Just just let them go. If they fall out and
(38:01):
break their arm, oh well, they're still going to be
healthier than sitting in there looking at something.
Speaker 1 (38:06):
You know.
Speaker 2 (38:06):
We're so risk averse and we don't want our kids
to get hurt to this, and we feel like they're
safe if they're in front of a tablet or a
computer or their phone.
Speaker 3 (38:15):
They're really not.
Speaker 2 (38:16):
So we need to we need to really shift changing
some behaviors with our kids.
Speaker 3 (38:21):
It's not that.
Speaker 2 (38:21):
Hard, you know, kids can adapt really quickly. Again, it's
harder for us to go on a diet than it
is for kids.
Speaker 1 (38:29):
Yeah, I think I want to start a Royal Grande
adventures for both adults couples and their kids, so that
you know, everybody wants to have an adventure meg and
it's like they've never been loosed to have those moments.
I mean I saw it with my kids. You know,
they went in gliding and skiing, they did all kinds
of whacking, were at whitewater rafting, things they'd never done before.
(38:51):
And was it a little dangerous, Yeah, life is dangerous,
but it teaches you a certain resiliency I think, and
the confidence by getting over those fears and actually mastering something.
And you know what, you have a good time.
Speaker 2 (39:05):
You have a lot a really good time. And kids
need to be pushed and pressed into you know, not
sports or things that you know count towards college or whatever,
but just activities where they're taking a risk, a safe risk,
because you're the parent there and you're determining what's a
healthy risk.
Speaker 3 (39:21):
And what isn't.
Speaker 2 (39:22):
But to learn that they can they they're stronger than
they think mentally. They can get through that. They can
hold on to a raft and those those rapids and
they can be scared to death, but they get through
the rapids. And what a great lesson for the kids.
Speaker 1 (39:37):
And you're speaking of the sports you've worked and you've
coached NFL players, which I did not know. What did
they teach you about parenting? And rage?
Speaker 3 (39:47):
Oh so much, so much?
Speaker 2 (39:49):
And Raymond full disclosure, I don't even understand how the
game's played.
Speaker 3 (39:54):
But anyway, what I found is I was.
Speaker 2 (39:57):
Called in there because a lot of them grew up
without f and the only person they felt comfortable trusting
was their mother. So I was a mother figure. So
I really was brought into the intimate details of their
lives growing up and so forth. And what I found
is that many of these elite athletes would say, I
(40:17):
get paid millions of dollars to go out on the
field and perform my craft extremely well and live just
on the edge of explosion. So my rage works well
for me, But then I come off the field and
nobody tells me how to turn it off. So then
they would go home and they didn't know how to
(40:39):
talk to their wives, they didn't know how to talk
to their kids. And so that's where I kind of
came in and said, look, you know, you're clearly a
very skilled a person, a man who's highly disciplined. You
need to transfer some of that discipline into parenting. I
also realized that, you know, without fathers, they really felt lost,
(41:04):
and in some ways, I think they were afraid of
themselves because they've never gotten pushback during their teen years
and their young adult years. And I really think that
that frightened them and I could see how that would
how that would happen.
Speaker 1 (41:20):
Yeah, let's talk for a second about faith. I mean,
this runs through every book you've ever written. How important
is faith and religious practice not only to a child,
but to a family. And look, Meg, I have friends
who say, I'm not going to baptize that kid because
I want her to make her own decisions. Is that wise?
Speaker 3 (41:40):
No, that's ridiculous.
Speaker 2 (41:43):
And here's why, I say, because as a child gets older,
if they don't know anything about the Christian faith Catholicism,
how can they select it. So you have to teach
them what is available. And then you have to teach
them why you believe Christian faith. You know, we insist
that kids learn math and English and writing and social science.
(42:08):
And then they say, well, I don't need to teach
them religion. Yes you do, because that's part of learning.
I mean, it's really we have we have an obligation
to teach our kids our values, and we need to
teach them why we have faith and who God is
and why we believe that Christ grows.
Speaker 3 (42:29):
From the dead. They want to know that.
Speaker 2 (42:32):
I will tell you kids are so open to talking
about faith. And again, you know, they can choose when
they're twenty five or thirty to reject it. But if
they don't have anything, there's nothing to reject. So what
they'll do is they'll go and look for the easiest
religion they can find and just fold into it. That's
(42:52):
not a healthy good thing because faith in God is
extremely important across all measure of you know, physical health
and emotional health and staying in school and having good
marriages and relationships. Those kids that had a secure relationship
with God did better during the teen years and in
(43:13):
their adult life. So you know, the science backs it
all up. But again, when you think about kids living
in isolation, if they don't have a relationship with God
with them in that isolation, then they're really alone and
that's cruel to a kid.
Speaker 1 (43:31):
Yeah, before I let you go, Meg, I usually do
an a Royal Grande questionnaire with all my guests. I'm
going to abbreviate it today because you've given us so
much time and so much wisdom. I don't want to
I don't want to keep you. But what is the
best advice you've ever been given.
Speaker 2 (43:46):
Some of the best advice I've gotten I got right
out of my residency.
Speaker 3 (43:50):
I was working with.
Speaker 2 (43:51):
An older pediatrician. It was probably my age at that time.
I thought it was really old. Anyway, he said, never
forget this. If you want to take good care of
a patient, a child, you have to care for their parent,
because the parent has the power. You come in and
(44:12):
out of their lives. And I never forgot that. And
that's why all my books are written to parents. I
can't tell you how many parents want me to write
a book to their teenagers. And I say, first of all, no, because.
Speaker 3 (44:23):
Teenagers don't read books like my yea.
Speaker 2 (44:27):
Second of all, you have the influence, so I want
to train you to have a profound influence on your kids.
Speaker 3 (44:36):
And that seems to work. So that's the best advice
I've gotten.
Speaker 1 (44:39):
That is so wise. You know a friend of my
Mike friends, whenever he would interview people coming into his firm,
he would ask them, what do you know that no
one else knows? And I'll pose the same question to
you before I let you go. What do I know
that no one else knows?
Speaker 3 (44:59):
That no one else knows?
Speaker 2 (45:01):
Well, of course, I know the power of a dad
and a child's life. I would like to think that
I know the majesty of Christ better than anybody else,
but I know that's not true.
Speaker 3 (45:15):
But that's the deepest joy I have in my life.
Speaker 2 (45:18):
Is that is that love and that intimacy and I
have that. And even though I have a great relationship
with my husband, he has his own relationship with Christ
and I have my own, and it bonds us together.
But the mystery, the mystery feels very very personal.
Speaker 1 (45:34):
Well you know you know that saying that the three
ply cord tied together the husband, the wife, and God
is really inseparable. And I think we also forget one
of those plies along the way. So thanks for reminding
us of that, doctor Meg Meeker. As always, thank you,
and hope you'll come back.
Speaker 3 (45:52):
I'd love to thanks so much.
Speaker 1 (45:53):
Damon great and and listen to doctor Meeker's podcast, which
is exceptional for parenting advice. She really gets into boundaries
and practical things that we all need as parents and
as people. Thank you, Meg, thank you. Okay, here's the whole,
the lesson that at least I drew from listening to
doctor Meeker. We underestimate our own power as parents, I think.
(46:15):
And if you spend the time with your children, and
not only your children, the people you love, the people
at work, the people in your family. When you spend
that time, you inevitably imprint your values, your thoughts, your
deeply held beliefs onto that child or those people you love.
And I think we don't often recognize that time spend
(46:41):
can accomplish so much. We divert ourselves with social media,
we get wrapped up in things that really don't matter,
but those one on one relationships. That FaceTime is essential.
And if you believe Meg Meeker and I do powerful Indeed,
I hope you'll come back to Arroyo Grande soon. Why
(47:03):
live a dry, narrow, constricted life when if you fill
it with good things, it can flow into a broad,
thriving Arroyo Grande. I'm raving at Arroyo. Make sure you
subscribe and like this episode. Thank you for diving in.
Come back next time. Arroyo Grande is produced in partnership
with iHeart Podcasts and is available on the iHeartRadio app,
(47:25):
or wherever you get your podcasts.
There's an explosion of anxiety and depression in young people.
What is the cause of this thing?
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Kids spend a lot of time girls in particular, on
social media. Believe it or not, social media is very
isolating and if we're not in healthy relationship with the
most important people in our lives are family members, then
we're really off kilter and something goes wrong.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
Are we too quick to push children into therapy? Do
you think? Yes?
Speaker 2 (00:31):
I think we are because I think that parents fail
to recognize how critical they are in their child's development emotionally, physically, mentally.
But any child it go as a therapist is going
to be quickly followed by mom and dad because you
can't treat a child in isolation.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
What is the biggest mistake that parents make and how
do you avoid this? I'm Raymond Arroyo. Welcome to Arroyo Grande,
where we dive into the wild currents of this culture
(01:11):
and pull out perspectives and practical life lessons from incredible
culture makers. This week, I'm so excited to be joined
by doctor Meg Meeker. She is one of the nation's
leading parenting authorities, a pediatrician, best selling author, podcaster. She's
helped countless families, guiding parents through the stages of their
children's development and counseling the kids themselves. She shared some
(01:36):
incredible wisdom, as you'll hear if you're thinking about a
family or if you have children of your own. We're
going to tackle how social media can stunt a kid's development,
how you actually choose the spouse of your children, and
the biggest parenting mistake you can make as a mom
or dad and how to avoid it. This is a
conversation full of advice that you need today, laced with
(01:59):
real life encouragement and are how it ends. Our historical
flashback reveals the lasting power of a very famous mother.
Stay tuned for that. Here's doctor Meg Meeker. Doctor Meeker,
first of all, thank you so much for being here. Look,
we've known each other a long time from your very
first book, Strong Father's Strong Daughters. Let's do a quick
(02:20):
overview here. How critical is a father to his daughter's
development and why? I mean, dads are always portrayed as
goofball characters in all the movies, Meg, why are they
important in the family.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
Well, we know that a father is the most important
man in a daughter's life. He's the one who teaches
her how men should behave, what you should expect from boys, teachers, boyfriends,
and so forth. And he really is the one who
gives a tremendous amount of self confidence and self esteem.
If you look across all issues that girls can have depression, anxiety, ADHD,
(02:55):
difficulty finishing school and so forth, the girls that have
a dad in their lives do extremely well across all aspects,
and so a dad really is critical, very very critical.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
Conversely, how important is a mother to her son's growth
and becoming a man. This is something people rarely talk
about as well.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
May Yeah, you're right, you know, there's something about that
cross sex relationship that has a uniqueness that the same
sex relationship doesn't have. So father to daughter and mother
to son, a mother is very very important, particularly during
the first ten years. But after the first ten years
(03:37):
then we found that a dad is critical for the
healthy development and moving in from boyhood to manhood because
boys really need that relationship with a father and they
need a role model is critical.
Speaker 1 (03:51):
What have you seen in your practice when the mother
is absent, for instance, in a young boy's life, what
happens there?
Speaker 2 (03:59):
Well, I think that you know, there's a difficulty with
attachment because boys typically and girls typically attached to the
mother in the early years of life, more difficult for
them to attach to their father and maybe fathers to them.
So what we see is the difficulty having that sort
of intimacy, trust and love exchange can be hard for kids,
(04:22):
and if they don't have it in the early years,
it's harder for them to get it later in the
later years.
Speaker 1 (04:28):
You don't make something we've talked about before, and it's
fascinating to me, and you see it play out in
not only people I know, but your clients I know
as well. Tell me how a parent can actually shape
the selection of their child's spouse. I mean, they don't
do it with words or deliberately, but the child does
(04:49):
it because of their example and place in their life.
Speaker 3 (04:53):
Explain that it's fascinating.
Speaker 2 (04:56):
A child, particular, let's talk daughters and fathers, watches every
move her father makes, not because she's necessarily interested in
her dad, but because she needs to know how he
feels about her. So in those early years, as she
watches her dad, she's taking in messages. My dad likes me,
my dad thinks I'm pretty, my dad thinks I'm capable,
(05:17):
and all of those begin to shape her identity as
she gets older. That is in her And there's a
psychological phenomenon where we as humans tend to return to
what we know, and that's why you see girls who've
been abused as children marry an abuser, and girls who've
(05:38):
had a great relationship with her dad end up having
a great relationship with their father because you fall back
on what you know and it's all subconscious, which is
very interesting. So it's important for fathers to realize that
when the girls are young, so they can really pay
attention to how they're treating her, talking to her affection
and so forth.
Speaker 3 (05:58):
So different and the guys she.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
Marry, Yeah, I mean, what you're really saying is the
man that you are in the household, the father that
you are in the household, will be played out in
the next generation in the man that that girl chooses
as her spouse or as her partner.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
Absolutely, And you know, girls don't want to hear that
that they're marrying a guy that's very much like their dad,
but it's true.
Speaker 1 (06:23):
Wow, does it apply to boys as well? They do
they marry it? Does someone like mother really can?
Speaker 2 (06:29):
And we find that boys will be more attracted to
somebody again that they're familiar with, a girl or a
woman who treats them like their mother did, talks to
them as nurturing and kind, and so it does tend
to work that way as well.
Speaker 1 (06:44):
There's an explosion, Megan, I know you're seeing this in
your practice. There's an explosion of anxiety and depression in
young people. What is the cause of this thing? I
mean we were talking earlier. You deal with this, I
know in your practice on a day basis.
Speaker 3 (07:01):
I do.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
I do, And it's disturbing because I've been at this
a long time and I've never seen the prevalence of
anxiety and depression that I do now. I think that
what's happening is that kids feel lonelier than they've ever
felt before. And we think, well, why is that they're
connected all the time to friends they're really not. Kids
(07:22):
spend a lot of time girls in particular, on social media.
Believe it or not, social media is very isolating. It's
not a real relationship. Kids feel very lonely. Girls feel
very lonely when they're on social media, even though they're
texting back and forth. It's not real and they spend
so much time doing that that they're not spending enough
(07:44):
time with their parents face to face, dialoguing, touching, hugging,
and so I think they're very lonely and that causes
them to feel very anxious and depressed. Because we're not
We're born to living community. We're born for relationship. God
tells us that. And if we're not in healthy relationship
(08:04):
with the most important people in our lives are family members,
then we're really off kilter and something goes wrong, and
that's what kids are feeling.
Speaker 1 (08:14):
To be Meg, What do you tell parents, I mean,
what can they do if this child is anxious and depressed?
And how much of this is a reflection of the
anxiety from the parents themselves.
Speaker 3 (08:25):
Well, that's a great question. I will say.
Speaker 2 (08:29):
Usually as I sort of unpack things with kids, I
find that if a child is anxious, there's usually a
person very close to them, i e. Mom or Dad
who's anxious as well. Because anxiety feeds on itself, it
feeds on other people around you. But what do I
tell parents? First of all, I say, what is going
on in the home? Is there a lot of stress
(08:50):
in the home. Often that'll do it, you know, Dad, losses, job,
moms working too much, the parents never see the child.
And so I say this, well, I need to go
to with therapists. I said, let's try this first. You know,
your child needs you more than a therapist. Your child
needs more time with you. So let's amp up the
amount of one on one time that you have with
(09:10):
your kids. And often that's a real game changer because
as parents look back over the past weeks or months,
they really realize they're not spending much time with their kids.
Because we're a generation of people that just want to
do as much as we can in a day. The
problem is the kids and their relationship with us are
the casualty. So parents really need to step up their
(09:32):
time with their kids.
Speaker 1 (09:33):
You know, you said something there I want to pick
up on. You said you don't need a therapist, you
need more time with that child. Are we too quick
to push children into therapy? Do you think? Because that
can become its own you know rot if you will?
I mean, where does therapy? And I always wonder, well.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
Exactly, yes, I think we are because I think that
parents fail to recognize nice how critical they are in
their child's development emotionally, physically, mentally, and I think that
whenever something goes wrong with a child, rather than saying, oh,
I could be part of this, I'm part of the
solution and remedy.
Speaker 3 (10:10):
But they don't know what.
Speaker 2 (10:11):
To do or they don't want to take the time
to do it, so they just give them to a therapist.
But any child it go as a therapist is going
to be quickly followed by mom and dad because you
can't treat a child in isolation. You have to treat
the unit.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
How much of this anxiety and this depression is caused
by social media? How dangerous is these devices in your estimation?
Speaker 3 (10:36):
Huge? And actually it's just not my experience.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
But we do have great studies that show that the
rise in social media use parallels the rise in depression.
Speaker 3 (10:48):
It's almost, you know, one to one.
Speaker 2 (10:51):
And so we do know that the longer girls are
on social media, the more their risk for depression, severe depression.
And there's a wrecked correlation there. And this is why
I'm so anti social media because I have literally seen
kids in my practice who have tried to commit suicide
and will admit to the to me that social media
(11:12):
played a part. They felt they weren't good enough, They
weren't pretty enough, they didn't they weren't popular enough, they
didn't have the right boyfriend, and it really takes them down.
Speaker 1 (11:22):
You call this comparison culture, that that's what has created
particularly for these girls. How do you break that loop?
Speaker 2 (11:31):
Yeah, well, I think that because you're absolutely right. It
is comparison culture because every girl is looking at her
friends on social media and she's never enough and so forth.
So how do you break the loop? I think that
it's important. First of all, if your daughter is on
social media, she's already on it, then you need to
talk to her about this. You need to shorten the
(11:53):
amount of time that she's on social media. I feel
very strongly if parents out there don't have they have
given their daughters a cell phone and iPhone, that they
can give them a phone or watch that doesn't connect
to the internet. The longer you can wait, the better
off it is for your daughter, because you can help
a sixteen or seventeen year old girl understand what's going
(12:15):
on in the comparison culture, much harder to do with
a twelve or thirteen year old.
Speaker 1 (12:20):
Huh, well, I know there's that movement. Wait till eighth
you think, you know, Wait till eighth grade to give
them a smartphone. You think that that's too early. Why
too young?
Speaker 2 (12:32):
It's too young, And I'll tell you why, because a
thirteen fourteen year old girl is so incredibly vulnerable. She'll
believe things that people tell her. And I think we
talked about it. Social media is the number one place
where girls get sex trafficked, and a fourteen year old
girl is far more influential than a seventeen or eighteen
(12:54):
year old girl.
Speaker 3 (12:55):
And that's why.
Speaker 2 (12:56):
I just like that cognitive maturity, more cognitive mature, sure,
in an older child, so she can deal with these things.
Speaker 3 (13:03):
A lot better.
Speaker 2 (13:04):
This is really hard, dangerous stuff, and I think that
parents know that on some level, but part of them feels, well,
my daughter, she's a straight A student. I can trust her.
She's great, doesn't matter.
Speaker 3 (13:18):
You know.
Speaker 2 (13:19):
More brain cells are more brain cells, and she needs
a little more frontal lobe development in order to navigate
this tough well.
Speaker 1 (13:26):
And we never talk about that. You know, make that
those front lobes really don't close and fully develop until
what twenty five twenty one?
Speaker 2 (13:35):
Yes, yes, I always tell parents your job is to
raise a healthy twenty five year old because the brain
really isn't fully developed until then, and I think that
we tend to think it develops earlier because we push
our kids to act more adult like too early, and
that tricks us into believing that our kids are actually
(13:56):
older than they are. We put far too much trust
in our kids, trust to make adult decisions when they're
too young.
Speaker 1 (14:03):
Meg, what's the impact of that constant visual and audio stimulation?
I mean, I see kids when I travel. They're running
through Instagram feeds for hours, on a plane for hours.
How do you counteract that?
Speaker 2 (14:17):
If you think about it, kids are living in a
constant fight or flight mode. The stimulation, just as you said,
auditory and visual stimulation, it's too much for their body
system and it burns them out. And when they get
burned out, they have a hard time sinking. They're fuzzier,
their moods go down, their answer, they have a harder
time sleeping. And again, what I encourage parents to do
(14:40):
is they need to carve out some time in their
child's day where it's quiet, there's no stimulation. They sit
with a book on their lap that has words on
a page, that don't jump and move and shout.
Speaker 1 (14:55):
And when do you recommend I mean, we talked about
this about the young person getting a smart phone. What's
the alternative? I mean, I know there are these other
you know, non smartphones where you can still stay in
touch with your family if you have an emergency. And
I know you've dealt with this even in your own
family with your own grandkids.
Speaker 3 (15:14):
Yeah, I have.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
Because now that we don't have a family phone where
kids can call and you pick up and say the
receiver and say hello, it is important for kids to
be able to connect with their parents. You know, for instance,
if there's a soccer practice and mom forgets to pick
them up or whatever.
Speaker 3 (15:30):
I've been there, done that.
Speaker 1 (15:30):
We have Matris.
Speaker 3 (15:32):
But anyway, you didn't have a watch.
Speaker 2 (15:35):
But anyway, the gab phone and the gizmo phones are
terrific because they look just like an iPhone. You can
get a watch that looks just like an Apple watch.
Kids can call their parents, they can maybe text their parents.
They cannot take photos, it doesn't go on the internet.
They can have social media, so there's that connection there
(15:56):
for safety and mom can always get hold of them,
but they don't have the dangerous risk.
Speaker 3 (16:02):
And something like a gab phone, you.
Speaker 2 (16:05):
Can increase the amount of exposure. Kids have to the
Internet over time, so it'll actually grow with your child.
So you may start at fourteen, no internet, and at
seventeen go, okay, you know, she can go, and so
you actually it grows with the child.
Speaker 1 (16:22):
Yeah, you get more access as you grow and you're
ready for that access, which I think I agree with you.
I think these devices are way too free wheeling. I mean,
you're throwing this child in the middle of everything. Talk
to me, Talk to me a bit about how damaging
the isolation is make. I see this every day, particularly
when I'm traveling, you know, when I'm in New York
(16:43):
or even when I'm home in New Orleans. People have
the earbuds on. Now they've got the meta glasses. They're
on the phone. Thousands of people could be on the street,
but these people are actually all alone in their fake world.
What is the solution here? I call it the bubble people.
They're in their own little bubble.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
Well, again, I think that it's really up to the parents,
and parents can do this. They say, well, my child
is on social media three or four hours a day,
and that's not uncommon, believe it or not. I've had
kids addicted. But what they need to do is say, Okay,
we're going to wean you down a little bit from
seven to eight o'clock at night. From eight o'clock at
(17:21):
night to nine o'clock, nobody can be on their phone.
And that means parents too, because, believe it or not,
kids are bothered by parents being on their phones more
than parents are bothered by their kids being on the phone.
Because when a kid is around a parent who's not
paying attention, they feel invisible and they feel that they're
not worth their parents' time and attention. So it's really
(17:43):
important that you make a family plan. Okay, family quiet hour.
You know, we're going to play a game from nine
to ten or eight to nine. So you've got to
begin to establish family rules for phones because then if
everybody does it, then the teenagers less likely to gripe
about having to do it.
Speaker 1 (18:02):
Yeah. Well, you know it's not just kids. I mean
the people I see with the earbuds and they're texting,
and they've got the metaglasses and they're in You're talking
to these people in the gym or on the street,
they're not even connecting with you. These are grown ups, though, Meg,
We're not talking about little kids. Here, But I guess
the way you train the child is the way the
adult turns out. And we're becoming increasingly isolated as people,
(18:25):
and that deeply concerns me. If somebody wants to see
a culture thrive and families grow, and you want good,
healthy citizens.
Speaker 2 (18:32):
And you think how it makes the people around the
person using the device feel. It makes them feel that again,
they're not important. They're not important to say hello to,
to shake hands with. They're just a nonentity. And the
other thing is when kids are on their phones all
the time, are listening to music, They are in their
(18:53):
private world, and mom and dad are not in that world,
and that can be very, very dangerous. Ten eleven old boy,
pornography is there. It will find him. All he has
to do is google trucks, and you know, the algorithm says, oh,
this must be a boy, and then the pornography finds them.
And of course he's not going to say anything to
(19:14):
his parents because he's very embarrassed and doesn't want his
phone taken away, and so he just stays there and
it finds him again and again. The same is to
with girls, not necessarily pornography, but friends and people that
she has no business talking to again. She lives in
this private world that's very isolating. And anytime they're isolated
(19:35):
from those who love them and those who can actually
shape their identity mom and dad and siblings, they start
to fall apart. They literally just start to fall apart.
Speaker 1 (19:47):
I personally think a child social media should be monitored
and I think patrolled. Friends of mine, those say they
need their privacy, meg Maker, you'd respond, how what would
you tell those parents?
Speaker 3 (19:59):
No, they don't, No, they don't.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
You know, when you and a high crew, that's a that's
a that's ridiculous, that's a ruse. And I think that
parents kind of use it as a cop out in
a way because they don't want to take time to
a argue with a child about that there is should
be no privacy and and me, they just don't want
to argue with a child because they'll give pushback. They
(20:22):
want their child to like them, they don't want any friction.
But here's why your child cannot have privacy until they're gone.
First of all, you need to keep them safe from themselves.
They are kids who are just looking for trouble all
the time, not consciously, but these are kids who are
ready to you know, fall off the rails at any
(20:44):
given moment if they're on social media, video games. So
you need to protect the child from himself. And so
when when kids come at you and say that's not fair, this.
Speaker 3 (20:53):
Is my private phone. Well, first of all, parents, you
on the phone.
Speaker 2 (20:57):
And second of all, you can't have a phone unless
I'm allowed to see it, because there's no secrets. You
and I you know, don't keep secrets from our spouses. Well,
can come to my phone and look at anything anytime.
That's what a healthy relationship does. So kids want a
healthy relationship with their parents and other and their peers
needs to be open for parents or else. Don't give
(21:19):
my cell phone. I'm really a bugger about it. Don't
let me have a cell phone.
Speaker 1 (21:23):
Tell me about the danger of Instagram and some of
these social media sites. I mean, this is like a
rife with groomers, who are you know, trafficking And so
many of these victims we read about may they first
encountered the people who would abuse them through these sites online.
Speaker 2 (21:41):
Exactly. Think about this, Raymond. You've got a thirteen fourteen
year old girl who doesn't spend much one on one
time where their parents are face to face. So she's
living in isolation. She's lonely. Now she gets on a
social media and a fifty or sixty year old guy
knows she's lonely, so he gets in there and he
starts to play her. Oh, I'm a sixteen year old boy,
(22:05):
and you're just so sweet. I see what you're writing.
That girl falls for that so fast. I can't tell
you how many times. Does not take much to influence
a thirteen, fifteen, even sixteen year old girl, because every
girl wants to think they're beautiful, that someone understands them.
(22:25):
You know, Oh, I understand you. Your parents don't, and
you know you and I would go, what are you
talking about? Your stranger?
Speaker 3 (22:32):
Fourteen year old girl doesn't care. All she knows is
this guy's telling her she's one.
Speaker 1 (22:36):
Well, and they're living in their.
Speaker 2 (22:37):
Hair, passing back and forth pictures and that's really dangerous.
Speaker 1 (22:41):
Well, they're living in their heads. And as you said,
they were alone. And when you're alone, you're in a loop.
And if someone's feeding that loop or feeding you new lines.
And look, it's not only young girls. I just read
a story where some poor, you know, sixty five year
old woman was sending money to Brad Pitt. It's not
Brad Pitt, but it's posing his brand, you know, So
(23:02):
they fall for this stuff.
Speaker 2 (23:04):
My husband, my husband has a patient who was sixty
and she announced that she was leaving to go to
Europe to marry some guy. And he said, well, have
you met him, No, but I've seen his picture. Well
have you sent him money?
Speaker 1 (23:17):
Yes?
Speaker 2 (23:17):
Because his mother was in the hospital and she literally
was ready to get on the plane the next day
and he said, ma'am, there's a problem here. You cannot go.
So it's really remarkable. She's a widow and she's very lonely.
Loneliness crushes your spirit, and that's where if you don't
even have a relationship with God, you're floating. You're sort
(23:39):
of in no man's land. And then you compound that
with loneliness in the midst of your family.
Speaker 3 (23:47):
Surviving is hard.
Speaker 2 (23:49):
It's very hard, and it's hard to articulate, but everybody
knows what I'm talking about. But loneliness is a killer,
and being on social media media makes kids terribly lonely
and terribly vulnerable to manipulation.
Speaker 1 (24:06):
Now how it ends. Sometimes a mother can make you
immortal when she was forty five, Anna McNeil lost her husband,
but she was deeply religious and devoted to her children,
especially young James, who had left their Massachusetts home and
relocated in London. Now. James was a painter and a bohemian.
(24:28):
Oscar Wilde said of James, he spells art with a
capital I. At the time, James was living with his
redheaded mistress, a woman named Joe Hifferman. Joe apparently had
to clear out of james apartment to make room for
his mother. Upon her arrival, Anna wrote, God answered my
(24:50):
prayers for his welfare by leading me here. She chastised
her son for his randy ways and became his caretaker,
occasional art dear dealer, and much more. In eighteen seventy one,
James was commissioned to paint a portrait of Maggie Graham.
She was the daughter of a member of parliament. James
(25:10):
painted in a heat and the young girl repeatedly failed
to show up to pose for the painting. What did
James do? Wait until you hear how it ends? Now
how it ends? So this James, a portrait artist, was
commissioned to paint a parliament's member's daughter in eighteen seventy one.
(25:31):
James had already prepared the canvas, and after the girl
missed several appointments, he wanted to paint someone, so James
made his mother Anna his subject. She later wrote, I
stood bravely two or three days whenever he was in
the mood for studying me, as his pictures are studies,
(25:53):
and I stood as a statue, but realized it was
too great an effort. Anna was so exhausted after days
of standing that James finally relented and let his mother
sit in a rocking chair. Anna later saluted her artist,
who quote is gently patient, as he is never wearying
(26:16):
in his perseverance, concluding to paint me sitting perfectly at
my ease. James would later call the portrait of Anna
with her hands on her lap Arrangement in Gray and
Black number one because of the dark hues he used
in the work. But you probably know it better as
(26:36):
Whistler's mother. It would become James McNeil Whistler's most famous
and beloved work and a living testament to the immortality
that can await those who stay close to Mama. Now
you know how it ends back to Meg Meeker. You
mentioned it earlier about boys and the omnipresent pornography that
(27:00):
really is all across the culture. It's not just online,
it's everywhere. How does pornography distort the image those boys
have of the other sex? How does it affect that
and their expectations.
Speaker 2 (27:14):
Well, it has a profound effect on a boy's ability
to later on experience true intimacy, physical sexual intimacy, because
after they see pornography, they become hardened to certain acts.
They're stimulating it first, but then they get boring, so
(27:35):
they have to go to more severe forms of pornography.
And we know that, and it just gets worse and
worse and worse and so bad. That's where they turn
to child porn because that gives them a little bit
of a kick. So what it does is it interferes
with the boy's ability to have healthy intimacy later on.
It interferes with his sense of self and his own sexuality.
(27:57):
He doesn't feel good about himself as a man because
what he's experienced over these years or months is that
I'm not satisfied, so something's wrong with me. It affects
his relationship with women because he objectifies the women and
often always in pornography. Women are put down, they are
(28:19):
they're used, and they're used as just objects for a
man's pleasure.
Speaker 3 (28:25):
Now they wouldn't tell you that, but they are so.
Speaker 2 (28:27):
Then a boy begins to see a woman as just
an object for his pleasure. Everything becomes a mess. It
absolutely becomes a mess. And this is why addiction can
be so bad and how it can take men a
long time to wait out of this addiction because it
affects them on so many different levels.
Speaker 1 (28:45):
And as a pediatrician who deals with body image and girls,
and I know as the father of a daughter, this
is important and it's an issue and the expectations in boys.
What is the impact of celebrities like we saw this
Bianca Sensory, Kanye West's wife showing up literally naked at
the Grammys, or Kim Kardashian posting these nearly naked posts
(29:08):
daily weekly. How does that affect young people and the
kids seeing it? Boys and girls?
Speaker 2 (29:15):
Well, first of all, girls look at this and they say, wow,
there's Beyonce. She has a lot of money, she's very popular,
she's very beautiful. And I want to be popular and
beautiful and maybe rich one day. I need to look
like her. I need to create my body to be
like her, and I need to dress like her, and
I need to be a sexy person. I see this
(29:37):
all the time in grade school.
Speaker 1 (29:38):
Kids, you know, in grad school.
Speaker 3 (29:41):
It's amazing. It's amazing.
Speaker 2 (29:43):
You know, our kids went to Catholic school where they
had to be covered nect to ese, and I thought,
that's good.
Speaker 1 (29:49):
The uniform is a good thing, Meg. It teaches a
certain rigor.
Speaker 2 (29:53):
They are and then to a young boy, it's stimulating
because boys are so visually stimulated and men, and Beyonce's
not being nice to them. You know, I don't like
my husband to look at Beyonce because I can't compare
with her, but fortunately he can't compare with brat Petty either.
But you know, it's stimulating to men, and it's not
(30:14):
fair because it changes their expectations of what they desire
in a woman, and nobody can keep up with that.
So that's why it's really not fair to either girls
or boys.
Speaker 1 (30:27):
Okay, this is really important. What is the biggest mistake
that parents make or I'll broaden it. What are the
biggest mistakes parents make and how do you avoid them?
Speaker 2 (30:39):
I think the biggest mistakes parents make is trusting their
child's ability to make adult decisions. I see this all
the time because they believe their kid is a good kid.
Their kid is a smart kid, and he's much he
has much stronger character than his friends, and he doesn't
lie even though a lot of his friends lie, and
(30:59):
he has good grades. But this is what I tell parents.
The kids I really worry about are the good kids,
particularly a good girl. If you have a sixteen seventeen
year old girl who's a good kid, close to her parents,
good grades, I worry because this is a girl who
can't say no. She doesn't want to hurt anybody's feelings,
(31:21):
so she'll date the football player that's a year older
than she is, and parents will be excited because he's
so popular.
Speaker 3 (31:28):
Da da da da da, And then she's going to do.
Speaker 2 (31:30):
What he wants because she doesn't want to hurt his feelings.
I hear that over and over. I can't say no
to my boyfriend. He won't like me and he'll be hurt.
Speaker 3 (31:42):
And they can't.
Speaker 2 (31:43):
They're in over their head. So I think the biggest
thing is that parents putting false trust in their kids
because they fail to realize how limited their kids' cognitive
and emotional growth.
Speaker 3 (31:56):
Is they don't let them be children.
Speaker 1 (31:59):
Yeah, and then we try. We entrust them to teachers,
we entrust them to therapists, we entrust them to everybody
but ourselves, the parents.
Speaker 2 (32:06):
Exactly exactly, And we need to have more self confidence
and say, my child's struggling with this, I'm going to
give it a go. She's got anxiety, she's got depression.
And I have seen dads alone pulled daughters through depression
and out of a depression by spending more time with them,
having great conversations and not going to a therapist. I
(32:29):
had a girl whose parents wanted to send to her
camp out west because she was a bad boyfriend, running
around and so forth. And I said, let's wait, and
I encourage dad, do me a favor, take your camping
for a couple of weeks. And do you know at
the end of two weeks, when they were in the
middle of nowhere paddling a canoe and she's crying, crying, crying,
she came home and didn't have to go to the
(32:50):
camp out west. That's the power of a father, and
dads need to grab that because they don't believe they
had that kind of power.
Speaker 1 (32:59):
Well, culture diminishes dad so much, makes them feel like
the goofball. They're always the goofball in movies, in film,
on television, and I think that has sunk in at
a certain level, and I think, well, you know, my
wife is the one who can handle this stuff, So
dads kind of take a back seat. They're spectators in
many cases they are.
Speaker 2 (33:18):
They're not only spectators. They're not only made that by
movies and the media. I think we women have to
take responsibility as well. We had three daughters and a son,
and there were times where subconsciously I didn't realize it,
but that was sabotaging my husband. He'd be talking to
the girls and so forth, and I'd be listening and
I go, no, no, no, that's not the way you
(33:40):
talk to girls. And I'd swoop in and sort of
take over the conversation. What is the message to our daughters?
Dad doesn't understand, only mom does. Get out of the way.
So we mothers need to take a hard look at
are we sabotaging our husbands and their relationships with our kids?
Speaker 3 (33:59):
Unknowing?
Speaker 1 (34:00):
Wow, wow, anything else? Any other major mistake that parents
make unwittingly or wittingly.
Speaker 2 (34:09):
Yes, I think they don't spend enough time with their kids.
I know that's a hard thing for parents to hear.
But you know, parents often ask me. You know, I
have a full time job, my husband has a full
time job. We have a babysitter fifty hours a week.
That child's going to have trouble. Kids are not made
(34:29):
to be raised in institutions or just by nannies. I
know I'm going to get a lot of hate mail
for that, but that's okay. My job is to speak
for children, not for their parents. Parents need to figure
out a way too. Working parents. You need to figure
out a way where you tag team. My husband and
I did that. Maybe you don't see each other as
much for a period of time. Oh well, you know
(34:51):
you can survive better. So parents need to really be
diligent about shifting their work schedules so they spend more
time with their kids.
Speaker 1 (35:00):
You can't replace them, yeah, FaceTime with their children. It
look we're empty nesters now, and boy do I feel it.
And you look back and you go, oh, maybe I
should have gone with them on that trip. Maybe I
should have done that. That's what you always say to yourself,
so you can't spend too much time with your children.
That's the I hope. If there's a messages that people take,
I hope it's that one. Look. Seventy seven percent of
(35:21):
kids do not qualify meg for military service physically. Have
you seen a decline in overall health among your clients
among your patients, yes.
Speaker 3 (35:31):
Yes, absolutely.
Speaker 2 (35:33):
It's interesting now because we're going into a time period
where we're going to start examining foods and what's in them,
and we feel like, oh, there's too much fat, there's
too much die. This is our answer to obesity. No,
it isn't. The reason we have overweight kids who are
not in good physical condition is because we let them
(35:54):
eat all day long. Parents want their kids to snack
all the time.
Speaker 3 (36:00):
Kids don't need a snack.
Speaker 2 (36:01):
We're setting up very unhealthy eating habits for kids by
saying second grade, third grade, fifth grade, have you had
your snack? Kids should not eat every two hours? And
then what happens. They get older and they put on weight,
and the more weight you put on, the less you
want to exercise.
Speaker 3 (36:17):
It's really hard.
Speaker 2 (36:18):
To motivate a fifteen year old girl a boy to
go exercise.
Speaker 1 (36:21):
Wow, So you know.
Speaker 2 (36:22):
They get the snowball starts to roll and accumulate, and
pretty soon they have a hard time either dieting or exercising.
So I really feel that we parents need to take
charge again. It's like with cell phones. Don't put your
child on a diet, put the whole family.
Speaker 3 (36:39):
On a diet.
Speaker 2 (36:40):
You can't tell your kid to not eat after seven
o'clock at night. If you're watching a movie at nine
with a pull of popcorn, you just.
Speaker 3 (36:47):
Can't do that.
Speaker 2 (36:49):
And the other thing, too, is I think that parents
don't want to say no to their kids. Kids beg
for food all the time, and you have to be
able to say no, you cannot eat that, No, you
can't go in refrigerator.
Speaker 3 (37:03):
You know.
Speaker 2 (37:03):
If I know it sound like an old fuddy duddy,
But if it were an hour and a half before
dinner when I was a kid and if I went
to eat a snack, my mother say you can't do that,
We're going to have dinner. And so kids need to
learn respect for food.
Speaker 1 (37:17):
Yeah, and restraint.
Speaker 3 (37:18):
Need to teach them that.
Speaker 1 (37:19):
Yeah, restraint, it's not a bad thing. Personal self mastery.
And the other thing is the kids are so sedentary today.
Make we went outside, I was thinking. When I was
a kid, it would be hours and hours after school
we were climbing trees until it got dark. You know,
they'd have to pull us in in the night time.
Kids don't do that anymore. They sit in front of
the green all night.
Speaker 2 (37:39):
All night, all night, and so they sit and they
go like this and again on so many different levels.
It's very unhealthy. And I wonder if ADHD, you know,
is a result of that as well. It sounds ironic,
but boys who are bouncy need a tree in their backyard.
Just just let them go. If they fall out and
(38:01):
break their arm, oh well, they're still going to be
healthier than sitting in there looking at something.
Speaker 1 (38:06):
You know.
Speaker 2 (38:06):
We're so risk averse and we don't want our kids
to get hurt to this, and we feel like they're
safe if they're in front of a tablet or a
computer or their phone.
Speaker 3 (38:15):
They're really not.
Speaker 2 (38:16):
So we need to we need to really shift changing
some behaviors with our kids.
Speaker 3 (38:21):
It's not that.
Speaker 2 (38:21):
Hard, you know, kids can adapt really quickly. Again, it's
harder for us to go on a diet than it
is for kids.
Speaker 1 (38:29):
Yeah, I think I want to start a Royal Grande
adventures for both adults couples and their kids, so that
you know, everybody wants to have an adventure meg and
it's like they've never been loosed to have those moments.
I mean I saw it with my kids. You know,
they went in gliding and skiing, they did all kinds
of whacking, were at whitewater rafting, things they'd never done before.
(38:51):
And was it a little dangerous, Yeah, life is dangerous,
but it teaches you a certain resiliency I think, and
the confidence by getting over those fears and actually mastering something.
And you know what, you have a good time.
Speaker 2 (39:05):
You have a lot a really good time. And kids
need to be pushed and pressed into you know, not
sports or things that you know count towards college or whatever,
but just activities where they're taking a risk, a safe risk,
because you're the parent there and you're determining what's a
healthy risk.
Speaker 3 (39:21):
And what isn't.
Speaker 2 (39:22):
But to learn that they can they they're stronger than
they think mentally. They can get through that. They can
hold on to a raft and those those rapids and
they can be scared to death, but they get through
the rapids. And what a great lesson for the kids.
Speaker 1 (39:37):
And you're speaking of the sports you've worked and you've
coached NFL players, which I did not know. What did
they teach you about parenting? And rage?
Speaker 3 (39:47):
Oh so much, so much?
Speaker 2 (39:49):
And Raymond full disclosure, I don't even understand how the
game's played.
Speaker 3 (39:54):
But anyway, what I found is I was.
Speaker 2 (39:57):
Called in there because a lot of them grew up
without f and the only person they felt comfortable trusting
was their mother. So I was a mother figure. So
I really was brought into the intimate details of their
lives growing up and so forth. And what I found
is that many of these elite athletes would say, I
(40:17):
get paid millions of dollars to go out on the
field and perform my craft extremely well and live just
on the edge of explosion. So my rage works well
for me, But then I come off the field and
nobody tells me how to turn it off. So then
they would go home and they didn't know how to
(40:39):
talk to their wives, they didn't know how to talk
to their kids. And so that's where I kind of
came in and said, look, you know, you're clearly a
very skilled a person, a man who's highly disciplined. You
need to transfer some of that discipline into parenting. I
also realized that, you know, without fathers, they really felt lost,
(41:04):
and in some ways, I think they were afraid of
themselves because they've never gotten pushback during their teen years
and their young adult years. And I really think that
that frightened them and I could see how that would
how that would happen.
Speaker 1 (41:20):
Yeah, let's talk for a second about faith. I mean,
this runs through every book you've ever written. How important
is faith and religious practice not only to a child,
but to a family. And look, Meg, I have friends
who say, I'm not going to baptize that kid because
I want her to make her own decisions. Is that wise?
Speaker 3 (41:40):
No, that's ridiculous.
Speaker 2 (41:43):
And here's why, I say, because as a child gets older,
if they don't know anything about the Christian faith Catholicism,
how can they select it. So you have to teach
them what is available. And then you have to teach
them why you believe Christian faith. You know, we insist
that kids learn math and English and writing and social science.
(42:08):
And then they say, well, I don't need to teach
them religion. Yes you do, because that's part of learning.
I mean, it's really we have we have an obligation
to teach our kids our values, and we need to
teach them why we have faith and who God is
and why we believe that Christ grows.
Speaker 3 (42:29):
From the dead. They want to know that.
Speaker 2 (42:32):
I will tell you kids are so open to talking
about faith. And again, you know, they can choose when
they're twenty five or thirty to reject it. But if
they don't have anything, there's nothing to reject. So what
they'll do is they'll go and look for the easiest
religion they can find and just fold into it. That's
(42:52):
not a healthy good thing because faith in God is
extremely important across all measure of you know, physical health
and emotional health and staying in school and having good
marriages and relationships. Those kids that had a secure relationship
with God did better during the teen years and in
(43:13):
their adult life. So you know, the science backs it
all up. But again, when you think about kids living
in isolation, if they don't have a relationship with God
with them in that isolation, then they're really alone and
that's cruel to a kid.
Speaker 1 (43:31):
Yeah, before I let you go, Meg, I usually do
an a Royal Grande questionnaire with all my guests. I'm
going to abbreviate it today because you've given us so
much time and so much wisdom. I don't want to
I don't want to keep you. But what is the
best advice you've ever been given.
Speaker 2 (43:46):
Some of the best advice I've gotten I got right
out of my residency.
Speaker 3 (43:50):
I was working with.
Speaker 2 (43:51):
An older pediatrician. It was probably my age at that time.
I thought it was really old. Anyway, he said, never
forget this. If you want to take good care of
a patient, a child, you have to care for their parent,
because the parent has the power. You come in and
(44:12):
out of their lives. And I never forgot that. And
that's why all my books are written to parents. I
can't tell you how many parents want me to write
a book to their teenagers. And I say, first of all, no, because.
Speaker 3 (44:23):
Teenagers don't read books like my yea.
Speaker 2 (44:27):
Second of all, you have the influence, so I want
to train you to have a profound influence on your kids.
Speaker 3 (44:36):
And that seems to work. So that's the best advice
I've gotten.
Speaker 1 (44:39):
That is so wise. You know a friend of my
Mike friends, whenever he would interview people coming into his firm,
he would ask them, what do you know that no
one else knows? And I'll pose the same question to
you before I let you go. What do I know
that no one else knows?
Speaker 3 (44:59):
That no one else knows?
Speaker 2 (45:01):
Well, of course, I know the power of a dad
and a child's life. I would like to think that
I know the majesty of Christ better than anybody else,
but I know that's not true.
Speaker 3 (45:15):
But that's the deepest joy I have in my life.
Speaker 2 (45:18):
Is that is that love and that intimacy and I
have that. And even though I have a great relationship
with my husband, he has his own relationship with Christ
and I have my own, and it bonds us together.
But the mystery, the mystery feels very very personal.
Speaker 1 (45:34):
Well you know you know that saying that the three
ply cord tied together the husband, the wife, and God
is really inseparable. And I think we also forget one
of those plies along the way. So thanks for reminding
us of that, doctor Meg Meeker. As always, thank you,
and hope you'll come back.
Speaker 3 (45:52):
I'd love to thanks so much.
Speaker 1 (45:53):
Damon great and and listen to doctor Meeker's podcast, which
is exceptional for parenting advice. She really gets into boundaries
and practical things that we all need as parents and
as people. Thank you, Meg, thank you. Okay, here's the whole,
the lesson that at least I drew from listening to
doctor Meeker. We underestimate our own power as parents, I think.
(46:15):
And if you spend the time with your children, and
not only your children, the people you love, the people
at work, the people in your family. When you spend
that time, you inevitably imprint your values, your thoughts, your
deeply held beliefs onto that child or those people you love.
And I think we don't often recognize that time spend
(46:41):
can accomplish so much. We divert ourselves with social media,
we get wrapped up in things that really don't matter,
but those one on one relationships. That FaceTime is essential.
And if you believe Meg Meeker and I do powerful Indeed,
I hope you'll come back to Arroyo Grande soon. Why
(47:03):
live a dry, narrow, constricted life when if you fill
it with good things, it can flow into a broad,
thriving Arroyo Grande. I'm raving at Arroyo. Make sure you
subscribe and like this episode. Thank you for diving in.
Come back next time. Arroyo Grande is produced in partnership
with iHeart Podcasts and is available on the iHeartRadio app,
(47:25):
or wherever you get your podcasts.
Host
Raymond Arroyo
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